On the Railway
The afternoon seemed a compensation for yesterday; October sun glowed
temperately over the links, with the air of a kind old gentleman
producing sweetmeats unexpectedly. The rich but transient gold of
summer evenings seemed hoarded in this summer of St. Luke; the air not
over-charged with uneasy heat, but lucid and caressing; the leaves no
longer in the shock of their summer finery, but dignified in the
decayed gentility of their autumn gold. A perfect day for golf, such
was the immediate impression of the Paston Oatvile mind; but to Reeves
a second thought occurred—it was a bad day for following up the clues
of a murder.
“It’s all very well,” he said to Gordon, “the visibility’s good, and
we shan’t be interrupted by rain; but we can’t get the atmosphere; the
spiritual atmosphere, I mean, of yesterday’s fog and drizzle. We shall
see where a man fell down the embankment, but we shan’t feel the
impulse of that weeping depression which made him throw himself over,
or made somebody else save him the trouble. We haven’t got the
_mise-en-scène_ of a tragedy.”
They climbed together, Gordon and he; a zigzag path up the side of the
huge embankment, close to the club-house. When it reached the level of
the line, it kept close to the trim hedge that marked the boundary of
the railway’s property, and so lasted till the very beginning of the
viaduct, where it dived under the first arch at a precarious angle and
came up the other side. It was a matter of common knowledge to the
good-humoured porters of Paston Oatvile that the shortest way from
that station to the neighbouring station of Paston Whitchurch was
along the railway line itself—the shortest, because it avoided the
steep dip into the valley. Accordingly, it was the habit of residents,
if pressed for time, to follow this path up to the viaduct, then to
break over the sacred hedge and walk over the railway bridge till a
similar path was available on the Paston Whitchurch side. This local
habit Reeves and Gordon now naturally followed, for it gave them
access to the very spot from which, twenty-four hours before, a human
body had been hurled down on to the granite buttress and the osier-bed
that lay beneath.
“You see what I mean,” said Reeves. “We can’t, of course, tell what
pace the train was going; they vary so much in the fog. But if, for
the sake of argument, you take the force with which I throw this stone
as the impetus of the train, you see how the curve of the slope edges
it out to the right—there—and it falls either exactly on the buttress
or next door to it. That’s how I picture yesterday afternoon—the man
takes a good jump—or gets a good shove, and falls just over the edge;
there’s nothing for him to catch on to; and between his own motion and
the slope of the embankment he gets pitched on to the buttress. I
don’t know any place along this line where the drop comes so close.
The coroner will call attention to that—it’s extraordinary the way
coroners do draw attention to all the least important aspects of the
case. I read a newspaper account once of a man who was killed by a
motor-car just as he came out of church, and I’m blessed if the
coroner didn’t draw attention to the dangerous habit of standing about
outside churches.”
“I must say, the place seems made for something like this happening.
Do you see how the line curves away from this side?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“What I mean is, it would be very hard for anybody to see Brotherhood
fall out of the train unless he was travelling in the same coach: the
other coaches would be out of view (unless a man were leaning right
out of the window), simply owing to the curve—and of course a fog
would make the job all the easier.”
“By Jove, that’s true. I must say, I stick to my murder theory,
whatever the jury make of it. In fact, I hope they will bring in
suicide, because then the police won’t be fussing round all over the
place. It looks to me like a murder, and a carefully planned one.”
“I’d just like to try your stone-throwing trick once more. Look here,
I’ll lean over the edge and watch it fall. Only we shall want a bigger
stone, if you can find one.”
“All right. Only they’re all little ones between the sleepers. I’ll
look along the bank a bit. I say, what the devil’s this?”
It was a sight that on most days would have given little surprise to
the pair; a common enough sight, indeed, down in the valley, but up
here a portent. Caught in a clump of grass, some twenty yards down the
line in the Paston Oatvile direction, was a golf-ball.
“That beats everything,” declared Gordon. “I don’t believe Carmichael
on his worst day could slice a ball a hundred feet up in the air and
lodge it in that clump.”
Reeves was examining the trove intently. “I don’t like this a bit,” he
said. “This is practically a new ball, not the sort of ball a man
would throw away casually as he walked down the line. A Buffalo, I
see—dash it all, there are at least a dozen of us use those. Who’ll
tell us whether Brotherhood used them?”
“I say, steady on! You’ve got this murder business on the brain. How
can you tell the ball hasn’t been there weeks and weeks?”
“Very simply, because it happens to have snapped the stalk of this
flower—scabious, don’t they call ’em—which isn’t dead yet. The ball
was right on top when I found it. I’m hanged if that ball fell there
more than twenty-four hours ago.”
“I say, we ought to be getting back to Oatvile if we’re going to catch
that train,” said Gordon. “It’s half-past four already, and we’ve got
to take to the path before we come in sight of the signal-box. The
signalman doesn’t really mind, but he has to pretend to.”
Gordon was one of those men who are always too early for trains. As a
matter of fact they got into Paston Oatvile station before the 3.47
from London was signalled. The 4.50 from Paston Oatvile had to connect
with it for the sake of passengers going on to Paston Whitchurch or
Binver, and was still wandering up and down in a siding, flirting with
a couple of milk-vans and apparently enjoying itself. The platform was
nearly bare of passengers, a fact on which Reeves artfully commented
to an apathetic porter.
“Not many travelling? You wait till the London train comes in, sir;
there’s always plenty in that as change here.”
“I suppose it’s the first train people can get away from business by,
eh?”
“That’s right, sir; there ain’t nothing else stops here after the
midday train. Of course there’s the fast train to Binver, but that
passes through ’ere. You travellin’, sir?”
“Just to Binver. Hullo, there’s the booking-office opening at last.
D’you mind getting two firsts for Binver, Gordon? Very sad thing that,
about Mr. Brotherhood,” he went on to the porter.
“That’s right, sir; very melancholy thing, sir.”
“I suppose you didn’t see him get on to the train?”
“There’s such a lot of ’em, sir, you don’t notice ’em, not the ones
that travel every day. And Mr. Brotherhood, ’e was a man as ’adn’t
many words for anybody. Though of course there’s some as is different;
d’you know Mr. Davenant, sir, up at the Hatcheries? He’s a nice
gentleman, that is, has a word for everybody. I seed ’im getting off
of the London train, and ’e asked me after my bit of garden—nothing
stuck-up about ’im. Excuse me, sir.” And, as the London train swung
into view, he proceeded up and down the platform making a noise
something like Paston Oatvile, for the information of anybody who
could not read notice-boards.
The London train was undeniably full to overflowing, and even when the
Paston Oatvile residents had diminished the number, there were enough
waiting for the Paston Whitchurch and Binver train to leave no
compartment unoccupied. Even in their first-class carriage, it was
only by luck that Reeves and Gordon managed to travel by themselves.
“I say,” began Gordon, “why Binver? We don’t want to go beyond
Whitchurch, do we?”
“Oh, it’s just an idea of mine. We can get a train back in time for
dinner. Don’t you come unless you’d like to. Steady, here we are.” And
they swept slowly past the scene they had just been viewing from the
solid ground. Reeves opened the door a little as they passed, and
threw out a fresh stone; he had the satisfaction of seeing it
disappear exactly according to schedule. “Now,” he said, “we’ve got a
quiet quarter of an hour to spend before we get to Binver. And I’d be
dashed glad if you’d tell me two things. First, how can anyone have
planned and executed a murder in a third-class carriage on a train so
infernally crowded as this one is?”
“They may have been travelling first. No one examines the tickets.”
“But even so, look at the risks. We should have had that fat old party
in here if I hadn’t puffed smoke in her face, and there are very few
firsts on the train. Our man took big chances, that’s certain.”
“And the other point?”
“Why did Davenant come up by this train yesterday? Of course you don’t
know the place as I do, but Davenant’s a scratch player, and a bit of
a local celebrity. Every child in the place knows that Davenant only
comes down here for week-ends, and it’s impossible to get a game with
him except on Sunday. Why does he suddenly turn up on a Tuesday
afternoon?”
“Well, I suppose he’s a right to, hasn’t he? I thought you were saying
he has a cottage here?”
“Yes, but one’s bound to notice every deviation from the normal when
one’s trying to trace causes. Look here, here’s Whitchurch. Do you
mind getting out and calling at the Hatcheries—that house, there—and
finding out, on some excuse, when Davenant got there, and whether he’s
there now? You’re not known, you see—but be devilish tactful; we don’t
want to put anybody on his guard.”
“Right-o! more lying necessary, I foresee. Oh, what a tangled web we
weave when first we practise to deceive. So long, Sherlock, meet you
at dinner.”
Reeves’ errand, it appeared when he got to Binver, was once more with
the railway staff. He went up to a porter, and said, “Excuse me, does
this train get cleared out here? I mean, if one leaves a thing in the
carriage, would it be taken out here?”
“That’s right, sir. Left Luggage Office is what you want.”
“Well, this was only a paper book. I thought perhaps you people
cleared them away for yourselves, like the newspapers.”
“Ah, if it was a paper book, we ’aven’t any orders to take that on to
the Left Luggage Office. We takes those away, mostly; what might the
name of your book be, sir?”
This was not at all the question Reeves wanted, but he was prepared
for it. “It was _The Sorrows of Satan_, by Miss Corelli,” he said. “I
left it in one of these carriages yesterday.”
“Well, sir, I cleaned out this train yesterday myself, and there
wasn’t no book of that name. A passenger must have taken it out with
them most likely. There wasn’t not but one book I found in those
carriages, and you’re welcome to that, sir; I’ve got it on the seat
there.” And he produced a repellent-looking volume entitled _Formation
of Character_, by J. B. S. Watson.
Reeves was trembling with excitement, but it was clearly not a case
for showing any enthusiasm. “Well, give you sixpence for it,” he said,
and the porter willingly agreed—he had guessed rightly that the
sixpence would prove to be half-a-crown.
It was an agony dawdling back by a slow train to Paston Oatvile,
knowing that he could not get at the cipher-document till he regained
his rooms. Merely as a book, the thing seemed to lack thrill. It
seemed hours before he reached the dormy-house, and yet Gordon had not
returned. So much the better; he would be able to work out the fateful
message by himself. It could not be a coincidence, though it had been
a long shot to start with. A book of that length (so he had argued to
himself) would have been the sort of book one reads in the train.
Brotherhood would arrange to have a cipher-message sent him out of the
book which he had constantly in his hands at the moment. He would be
travelling with it; it was not on the body or by the side of the line;
the murderer might not have thought of removing it. This, then, must
be the book itself.
As he worked out the message he became less confident. It appeared to
run as follows: “Hold and it thoughts with the I highest and to.”
“Damn,” said Mordaunt Reeves.